Deter­min­ing how to build a sol­id brand strat­e­gy is an essen­tial com­po­nent of every great busi­ness plan. While a busi­ness plan helps to guide entre­pre­neurs on how to nav­i­gate the cur­rent mar­ket­place, and devel­op a method for gen­er­at­ing an annu­al rev­enue stream- brand strat­e­gy is the inten­tion­al plan­ning of how your com­pa­ny will grow and devel­op its image over time. Devel­op­ing a brand strat­e­gy will help you iden­ti­fy the core phi­los­o­phy and rea­son your com­pa­ny exists, what it stands for, and how it con­nects with and serves its cus­tomers. When done right, the fin­ished prod­uct is a scal­able, repeat­able strat­e­gy that will posi­tion your brand for growth year after year.

To help make the creation of a great brand strategy more approachable, we’ve provided a few key questions you should be asking yourself:

What do my current customers think of my brand?

Well, do you know? Are you mon­i­tor­ing cus­tomer feed­back in a mean­ing­ful way that empow­ers your brand with the knowl­edge and expe­ri­ences being shared by your cus­tomers? If you can’t con­fi­dent­ly speak on the behalf of your clien­tele, then it might be worth hav­ing the con­ver­sa­tion at your next meet­ing with your mar­ket­ing team. Sur­vey Mon­key or Google Forms are great tools for get­ting feed­back from your cur­rent clients.

Do my employees align with my brand?

Every time a cus­tomer inter­acts with one of your employ­ees, they are hav­ing and expe­ri­ence with your brand. So, it’s cru­cial that your employ­ees are all on the same page in regards to your brand strat­e­gy. Inter­nal com­pa­ny audits can be incred­i­bly use­ful for gain­ing insights into how your employ­ees view your brand, what they cur­rent­ly know about your brand, and by iden­ti­fy­ing pat­terns in cus­tomer interaction.

What makes my brand unique?

Hope­ful­ly, your brand is unique in some form or fash­ion. Today’s world of com­merce is not kind to those who serve aver­age prod­ucts to the “aver­age Joes”. If your brand is going to be trans­fer­able to mar­kets of new media, you’ll need to iden­ti­fy your niche, or your unique val­ue propo­si­tion. Once you’ve iden­ti­fied what makes your brand stand out, your brand’s mes­sag­ing acts as a mega­phone to let your cus­tomers know who you are and why you’re worth considering.

Is my brand consistent?

This one is pret­ty sim­ple, is my brand mes­sag­ing and image con­sis­tent? A quick eval­u­a­tion of your cur­rent mar­ket­ing mate­ri­als will show you how suc­cess­ful your brand has been in keep a con­sis­tent mes­sage for your cur­rent and poten­tial customers.

What’s my brand’s Big Idea?

The “Big Idea” serves as your brand’s guid­ing prin­ci­ple, your implic­it brand promise, your com­pet­i­tive advan­tage, and more. The Big Idea will guide you in every aspect of your brand strat­e­gy, from new web­site devel­op­ment to cus­tomer inter­fac­ing. So, what is your brand’s big idea?

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